The Partition of India

Sentiments of Indian nationalism were expressed as early as 1885 at the
Indian National Congress, which was predominantly Hindu. In 1906 the All-India
Muslim League formed with favorable relations towards British rule, but by 1913
that changed when the League shifted its focus and began to view Indian
self-government as its goal. It continued to favor Hindu-Muslim unity towards
that end for several decades but in 1940 the League began to call for a separate
Muslim state from the projected independent India. The league was concerned that
a united independent India would be dominated by Hindus. In the winter of
1945-46 Mohammed Ali Jinnah's Muslim League members won all thirty seats
reserved for Muslims in the Central Legislative Assembly and most of the
reserved provincial seats as well.

In an effort to resolve deadlock between Congress and the Muslim League in
order to transfer British power "to a single Indian administration", a three-man
Cabinet Mission formed in 1946 which drafted plans for a "three-tier federation
for India." According to those plans, the region would be divided into three
groups of provinces, with Group A including the Hindu-populated provinces that
would eventually comprise the majority of the independent India. Groups B and C
were comprised of largely Muslim-populated provinces. Each group would be
governed separately with a great degree of autonomy except for the handling of
"foreign affairs, communications, defense, and only those finances required for
such nationwide matters." These issues would be addressed by a minimal central
government located in Dehli.

The plan, however, did not take into account the fate of a large Sikh
population living in Punjab, part of the B-group of provinces. Mughal emperors'
persecution of Sikh gurus in the 17th century had infused the Sikh culture with
a lasting anti-Muslim element that promised to erupt if the Punjab Sikhs were to
be partitioned off as part of a Muslim-dominated province group. Although they
did not make up more than two per cent of the Indian population, the Sikhs had
since 1942 been moving for a separate Azad Punjab of their own, and by 1946 they
were demanding a free Sikh nation-state.

As leader of the Muslim League, Jinnah accepted the Cabinet Mission's
proposal. However, when Nehru announced at his first press conference as the
reelected president of Congress that "no constituent assembly could be bound by
any prearranged constitutional formula," Jinnah took this to be a repudiation of
the plan, which was necessarily a case of all or nothing. The Muslim Leagueís
Working Committee withdrew its consent and called upon the Muslim nation to
launch direct action in mid-August 1946. A frenzy of rioting between Hindus and
Muslims ensued.

In March of 1947 Lord Mountbatten was sent to take over the viceroy, and
encountered a situation in which he feared a forced evacuation of British
troops. He recommended a partition of Punjab and Bengal in the face of raging
civil war. Gandhi was very opposed to the idea of partition, and urged
Mountbatten to offer Jinnah leadership of a united India instead of the creation
of a separate Muslim state. However, Nehru would not agree to that suggestion.
In July Britain's Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act, which set a
deadline of midnight on August 14-15, 1947 for "demarcation of the dominions of
India." As a result, at least 10 million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs fled their
homes to seek sanctuary on whichever side of the line was favorable to them. The
ensuing communal massacres left at least one million dead, with the brunt of the
suffering borne by the Sikhs who had been caught in the middle. Most of them
eventually settled in Punjab.

Jinnah presided as the governor-general of Pakistan, which was geographically
divided into East Pakistan and West Pakistan and separated by Indian territory
(including half of Punjab and half of Bengal). However, ownership of Kashmir
remained in dispute until it came to a head and war broke out once again in
1965. The unrest did not end there; in 1971 tensions between East and West
Pakistan over Bengali autonomy developed into another civil war, with the result
that Bangladesh became an independent country in 1972 and West Pakistan remained
Pakistan.

Indian Independence

Between 1940 and 1942, the Congress launched two abortive agitations against
the British, and 60,000 Congress members were arrested, including Gandhi and
Nehru. Unlike the uncooperative and belligerent Congress, the Muslim League
supported the British during World War II. Belated but perhaps sincere British
attempts to accommodate the demands of the two rival parties, while preserving
the unitary state in India, seemed unacceptable to both as they alternately
rejected whatever proposal was put forward during the war years. As a result, a
three-way impasse settled in: the Congress and the Muslim League doubted British
motives in handing over power to Indians, while the British struggled to retain
some hold on India while offering to give greater autonomy.

The Congress wasted precious time denouncing the British rather than allaying
Muslim fears during the highly charged election campaign of 1946. Even the more
mature Congress leaders, especially Gandhi and Nehru, failed to see how
genuinely afraid the Muslims were and how exhausted and weak the British had
become in the aftermath of the war. When it appeared that the Congress had no
desire to share power with the Muslim League at the center, Jinnah declared
August 16, 1946, Direct Action Day, which brought communal rioting and massacre
in many places in the north. Partition seemed preferable to civil war. On June
3, 1947, Viscount Louis Mountbatten, the viceroy (1947) and governor-general
(1947-48), announced plans for partition of the British Indian Empire into the
nations of India and Pakistan, which itself was divided into east and west wings
on either side of India. At midnight, on August 15, 1947, India strode to
freedom amidst ecstatic shouting of "Jai Hind" , when Nehru delivered a
memorable and moving speech on India's "tryst with destiny."

Jawaharlal Nehru : Speech On the Granting of Indian Independence, August 14,
1947

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when
we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very
substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India
will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in
history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when
the soul of a nation, long supressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at
this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of Inida and
her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless
centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her
failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that
quest or forgotten the ideals, which gave her strength. We end today a period of
ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate
today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and
achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this
opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this
Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before
the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are
heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now.
Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so
that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take
today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It
means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of
opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe
every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears
and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to
our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all
the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them
to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is
freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that
can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to
join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for
petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have
to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

II

The appointed day has come-the day appointed by destiny-and India stands
forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and
independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do
much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point
is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act
and others will write about.

It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A
new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a
vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never
be betrayed!

We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of
our people are sorrowstricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom
brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a
free and disciplined people.

On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the
Father of our Nation [Gandhi], who, embodying the old spirit of India, held
aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We
have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but
not only we but also succeeding generations will remember this message and bear
the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith
and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of
freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.

Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of
freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.

We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by
political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom
that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we
shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike.

The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour?
To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers
of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a
prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic
and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to
every man and woman.

We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we
redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny
intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold
advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever
religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights,
privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or
narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought
or in action.

To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge
ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.

And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the
ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her
service.